PhD Candidates/ Postdocs in Hyperpolarized Magnetic Resonance for Drug Screening Applications

ERC Synergy Grant Staff Opportunities

Our recently funded ERC Synergy Grant HiSCORE seeks to advance hyperpolarisation, miniaturisation, parallelization, spin dynamics, and combine these research themes for highly informative drug discovery by nuclear magnetic resonance. We believe that, eventually, magnetic resonance can provide an in-depth biophysical characterisation of drug candidates in a much shorter time than today, and become a very effective platform for rapid drug discovery.

This highly interdisciplinary project is run by four laboratories (Geoffrey Bodenhausen, Arno Kentgens, Jan G. Korvink, and Benno Meier) in three institutions (ENS Paris, Radboud University Nijmegen, and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology). Our partners Alvar Gossert (ETH Zürich) and Claudio Dalvit (Trento) complete our team with strong expertise in magnetic resonance (MR) based drug discovery.

We now invite applications from prospective PhD candidates and postdocs to join this ambitious research programme. Several positions are available, and we expect frequent and in-depth exchanges between the participating labs. PhD positions may be supervised jointly, and enable one to obtain experience in the participating institutions. The focus of the individual labs, along with open positions, is detailed below.

We will soon be equipped with three cryogenic polarizers. We are equipped with Bruker 400, 500, 600, and 800 MHz NB and WB magnets with multi-channel consoles for liquid- and solid-state NMR. Our lab invites applications of enthusiastic post-doctoral researchers with a degree in Physics, Chemistry or a related area, and PhD candidates. Our research will focus on:

• High throughput MR-based detection and characterisation of ligand binding
• Development of highly parallel and fast hyperpolarization with DNP
• Control of relaxation and thermal mixing during the transfer of hyperpolarized materials.
• Development of rapid distribution and detection of hyperpolarized samples across many parallel detectors.

The post-doc positions are available for 2 years, renewable by mutual consent. The PhD positions are available for 3 years.

For candidates interested in working with our partners, please visit

• Benno Meier, KIT (https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/634323)
• Jan Korvink, KIT (https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/633065)
• Arno Kentgens, Radboud University Nijmegen (https://www.euraxess.nl/jobs/636176 and https://www.euraxess.nl/jobs/636177)